How did The Lay of the Land come about?
It was the summer of 2020, a few months into COVID. I left New York to live with my in-laws in Nashville, Tennessee. I had just dropped my first photo book, nyc, i Iove you…, when HarperCollins approached me to write this book. It was the last thing on my radar—I was in the hype of my photo book, and it was something I wasn’t even remotely considering at all. I am not a writer; that’s why I take photos for a living, so I don’t have to write.
But after bouncing off ideas, and with the encouragement from HarperCollins, the concept of the book was beginning to reveal itself. It took a long process, with months and months and months of essays and revisions. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but it allowed me to dive deeper into myself. I got to see some of the parallels between my earlier work and earlier life experiences. Looking back, I think it was the perfect time to dive into these stories, but I hope to never write a book again in my life. I want to go back to making photo books.
In the book, you mention your connection to your mother's love of adventure. How much of that plays a role in the way you perceive the world through a lens?
Losing my mom at a young age, I still don’t quite understand psychologically what that did to my development as a child. It’s been 30 years since the accident, and I think there are a lot of things that I deal with now that I haven't fully dealt with. I often think, is this stemming from my adolescent years, high school, around the time my mom got into an accident or her passing?
I think about her from time to time, and I always think about what it would have been like if it never happened. At the end of the day, I wish she could have met my wife Maddie and seen me make it for myself, I know she would have been proud. She had this energy about her, she carried this lust for life and adventure, and I strive to do the same. It's a part of me and my work, a little piece of her, wherever I go.